Alameda's fall reflects promises unfulfilled

As they made their way down the gallery, Woody Guthrie's desolate voice, singing “This Land Is Your Land” on a video loop, rose above the din of temporary air conditioners.

They lingered for an hour, studying posters and watching video reels from “Bittersweet Harvest,” an exhibit about the federal Bracero Program, which brought some 2 million Mexicans to America between 1942 and 1964.

One of the posters included a photograph of an old cook stove, and Emma Castillo and her brother, Elias Flores, shared a cherished memory there. Their mother had cooked on one just like it.

Castillo, a North Side hair stylist, brought her brother and his wife, Robin, as well as her own daughter, Francesca, to the Museo Alameda last week for the very reason it opened with such fanfare three years ago — to celebrate the Latino experience in America.

“People need to know where they came from,” said Flores, who was visiting from Minnesota. “The culture is something that should always be carried with you.”

If anything, though, their visit last week — Castillo's fourth since the museum opened — offered a poignant reminder of a dream that is gasping for life. It came not long after yet another shutdown of the Alameda due to balky air conditioning. Whole galleries were sealed off, apparently because there was nothing to display.

The museum has lost most of its staff, including the registrar who obtained artifacts for display. No one answered a knock on the door of the administrative offices, and the only people working were a maintenance man, a security guard and a ticket-taker, all paid by the city.

A comment book contained generous but pointed reminders of how little there is to see now.

“Great exhibit but sparse,” said a typical entry. “You need more material to truly bring out the culture and history of the intended subject.”

The only exhibits were “Bittersweet Harvest,” in a partitioned section of the first-floor Smithsonian Gallery, and “Arte en la Charrería,” an upstairs exhibit about Mexican equestrian culture. The latter was supposed to have closed May 2.

The ticket-taker said 50 to 100 visitors a day were traipsing through, but she might've been stretching a bit. During an hour on a hot afternoon, Castillo and her family were the only visitors. Another employee put the count closer to 20.

It's hard to know whom to blame for what has become of the Alameda, the fate of which now rests in the hands of a board scrambling to develop a plan that will satisfy city officials. Unless it involves a lot more money, the museum seems doomed.

“Big promises were made,” said a person formerly associated with the museum, who asked not to be named. “Crazy things that the museum couldn't deliver.”

The story of its fall from grace may take a long time to sort out. The former associate said the museum was run with minimal accountability, and that it never had the professional staff on the business side to match its dedicated museum-side employees. There wasn't even a grant-writer to bring in new funds, which explains why it had so much trouble making payroll.

The biggest cost is being borne by people such as Castillo and her family, who have trouble grasping how badly they've been let down.

“It took so long for us to get this,” she said. “Why can't they save this place?”

Some people are trying, but there aren't many reasons for optimism within the museum's walls. In fact, it was hard not to find meaning in one of the posters about the Bracero Program, under the heading “Broken Promises/Promesas Rotas.”

“Bracero contracts,” it said, “promised much but did not always deliver.”